


What a Handsome Pair!

by orphan_account



Series: The Romantic Egoist (and His Cynical Companion) [1]
Category: Literary RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-21
Updated: 2013-06-21
Packaged: 2017-12-15 16:49:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/851790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how you meet him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What a Handsome Pair!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to: Zeen, fungusvansant, Chelsy.
> 
> No thanks to: Maria, as this is your fault.

This is how you meet him: it’s nearly closing time at some dive bar and some kid (looking young enough to need to show ID and probably young enough that the one he shows is fake) has just snatched the cap off of some popped-collar stereotype surrounded by similarly attired, similarly built guys. The kid’s put the cap on and he’s smiling and stumbling and fake mumbling in a timbre two octaves below his own, cracking some joke about LAX and date rape.

 It isn’t a good joke, but its quality is not why, when the kid’s turned to his little crowd (who is no longer laughing), the stereotype shoves him. It’s not why, when the kid turns back around, Popped Collar punches him in the face, knocking him to his ass. It isn’t why the rest of the Popped Collar’s friends surround the kid, informing him that he is going to get the living shit beat outta him.

The kid can offer little defense; he is a slight fellow, five-eight at the most, one-forty pounds, maybe. His friends have scattered, as they are either built the same way or they don’t care enough to save him at the expense of themselves or both. The popped collars do not look like they play lacrosse; they look like they play football. And they do not just look like they play football; they look like they are linebackers.  They look like they are good at it.

The kid doesn’t stand a chance, but (see how waxy his face is, see how shined-over his eyes are) he’s too drunk to know that and he gets up, when it would have been better to stay down, curled into a ball until the cops got there, because the bartender’s a girl tonight and she can’t do shit else but dial. He stands (see how unsteady his legs are, how close he is to falling) and puts up his fists in some weak imitation of an old-time boxer he saw a picture of, once, blood flowing from his nose like a river run red.

He hasn’t a goddamn chance.

You walk over. One of them sees you and says something like, “Fuck off, bro.” (Christ, what an accurate portrayal!) The other ones turn to look at you, too; some of them break off from the rest and walk towards you, because you’re six foot, two hundred pounds (muscle mostly) and you look it.

You swing at the one’s that closest and yeah, he’s gotta be a linebacker, because it’s like hitting a brick wall; he staggers back, though. A thrill shoots from your heart, drilling through your veins. You keep after him and he may be a linebacker but he’s not very good because one two three blows and he’s down; all the while the other ones are hitting you and it hurts and you can’t see that good now (your eyes are stinging) so you’re swinging as crazy as the kid was and you land every time (and you hope he’s still there and not too dead so someone can appreciate it).

The girl  is screaming something about the cops; it must be they’re here, because you can hear sirens.

You don’t let up off of them, but they let up off of you and they run out the front like idiots and you start running towards the back because you’re not. The kid’s still standing, steadying himself on a table and he doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere, so you grab his arm and drag him along with you because you want to ask him what the fuck he thought he was doing and what the fuck is he on and why the fuck did he stay and what the fuck is wrong with him and where the fuck his parents are; there isn’t too much resistance.

The air bites into your face and you slosh through some puddles a voice (sounding oddly like your father) tells you are half piss, half blood, half water, all riddled with hepatitis and syphilis and HIV probably because you’re in actual city.

You’re at the corner when the cop sees you and tells you to stop. You almost don’t, but the kid does and now there’s a one hundred and forty pound weight dragging you down. You’re cuffed, you’re shoved into the hard vinyl seat next to sullen Popped Collar. The kid’s seated next to you in the car, he delicately, drunkenly spits a mess of blood and teeth into his upturned hands. You tell him to put it back in his mouth. (He does.) You tell him they can save his teeth. You tell him to swallow and he kind of laughs, and red sprays from his mouth and Popped Collar calls him a fag and he laughs some more and through his laughter, he says:

“You wish, bro.”

“Fuck you.”

“You were getting pretty handsy back there.”

“Fuck you.”

You sing, “Kid and Popped Collar sitting in a tree-”

And the kid starts choking but in an amiable way.

(It’ll turn out later that he’s swallowed his teeth. It won’t matter that much, because he’ll get caps and he’ll take them out at parties sometimes and it’ll be a good anecdote and people will use it as your amber-hued origin.)

Popped Collar tries to kick you and the cop who’s not driving reads you your Miranda rights.

It’s quiet the rest of the ride.

At the station, you find out that the ‘kid’ is actually twenty-four (three years older than you and that’s too old to just be hanging in a bar) and that his name is actually Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald. You don’t laugh, though; your name is Ernest, which has to be one of the worst names a human could possibly have.  Popped Collar (actual name: William)  does laugh, because he doesn’t have an old man name that makes people think of a black-and-white daguerreotype of some incredibly starched walrus lookalike. His name is bland and inoffensive, like Channing Tatum or mashed potatoes.

And it turns out that the court system is nothing like it is on TV, because you’re there for five hours in the same holding cell as Francis (Jesus, who gives their kid a name like that?) who apparently prefers Scott, but Scott’s the name of the worst mutant so you meet in the middle and you call him (the same kind of people who name their kid Ernest) Fitz.  And then comes the first worrying thing about him: a wide smile that shows all his teeth, a smile that charms even though there’s gaps and it’s pink with blood. You smile, too, but then it’s like your lip’s going to rip in two, so you stop.

“Yeah, man, whatever. Fitz is a rich guy name. You know he’s probably crashed a couple cars.”

“Fitz Fitzgerald is related to the Kennedy family.”

“Fitz Fitzgerald murdered a waitress, but got off.”

“Fitz Fitzgerald bathes in the tears of the poor.”

“Fitz Fitzgerald winters on the moon.”

“He doesn’t even like it; he just likes showing that he can afford it.”

It goes like that for a while, until a cop shows up.

Somehow, you’re not charged with anything.

It’s morning when you get out; the suits are on their way to work, as is every other adult with a job and any child still old enough to go to school is going. You look like shit. You both look like shit. The adults are doing a deliberate sort of not-looking, while the schoolchildren gawk. There’s some glory in that, that shared knowledge that yeah, you were in a fight and yeah, you’re still walking and hopefully you’ll have the scars to prove it.

(There used to be a twinge of shame, when Mom clucked her tongue at the new cuts and scrapes, but it’s gone now, hasn’t been with you since you left home.)

You close your good eye; you’re not seeing any worse through the bad one and the aches haven’t settled in yet, so you start away from the courthouse, thinking you can maybe get to a shower and maybe get into bed without having to crawl. Fitz grabs your arm (how bony his hands are), says, “Not sure how to say this without sounding like a creep, but could I catch a few winks at your place? I just know if I go home, I’ll end up in the hospital.” (And he smiles, like it’s not actually too serious, he just needs a favor, it’s just a thing between friends when the missus is in a wax.)

You say no, but it comes out as, “Sure, fine.”

It’s the Midwest’s fault. If you weren’t from the Midwest, from Oak fucking Park, if you were from New Jersey or something, you would’ve been able to say no and have it come out as no and he would’ve just been some guy you used as background color in a story. You are from the Midwest, though, so he goes home with you (not like that not that there’s anything wrong with that but you’d rather not open yourself up to the shit that came from being like that), because you’re infected with some cornfed Protestant brain parasite that makes you uncomfortable when you can help and you don’t, when you commit that Sodomite sin of inhospitality.

It’s three blocks to your apartment; you don’t wait up for him, even though he’s lagging behind, even though he wobbles for a second, like he’s going to keel over, because he’s a grown-ass man and you’re the one doing him favors and you’re not going to carry him on top of letting him into your house when you’ve already gotten into a fight and you’ve already gotten arrested for him, a stranger.

(It occurs to you that you’ve made a bad decision. This happens often.)

When you get to the door of the building, it would have been easy for you to just walk in and let the door lock behind you. You don’t. You hold the door open for him, put a hand on his back, ask if he’s  going to be sick or something because he’s fishbelly pale underneath those bruises and he’s sweating too much and you kind of get the feeling that if you felt his pulse, it would be beating a tattoo beneath your fingers.

“No, it’s fine. I probably just need to get something into me.”

“...Are you homeless? It’s all right if you are, I just need to know.” (That is a lie.)

“Don’t worry. I’ll be gone soon.” (That is also a lie, but it’s a lie like ‘Don’t worry, you’re gonna make it.’ is a lie. You don’t know it at the time; the liar themselves might not know it, either, but it’s still not fucking true.)

Again, you could say no, but you don’t and he goes up five flights of stairs, gripping onto the banister like a drowning man clings to rope.

You wonder if he’s diabetic. You wonder if he didn’t lie to the booking officer, so he could get out faster. You’re not a doctor. You’re not his doctor.

Here is your apartment: There’s a common room combined with a kitchen, which is to say there’s a couch, a stove, a coffee pot, some cabinets, a half-refrigerator, and a wall phone that barely works because it is almost certainly old enough to have fathered your father.(No TV, because you wouldn’t waste your brain on it and because you can’t afford one) There’s a bathroom with everything crowded so close together you can easily piss into the toilet from the shower (not that you will ever admit to trying). There’s a bedroom, which is taken up nearly entirely by a twin bed; there’s a sliding-door closet in there in your landlord’s attempt to save space but you have to move the bed against the wall for the two inches of space you need to squeeze into the closet to get what you need for the day. What little room is left is taken up by the boxes upon boxes of books you took with you.

All in all, it’s a rather comfortable death trap.

Fitz barely weaves his way to the couch, barely collapses upon it.

Everything hurts. You get him some (hours-old, stone-cold) coffee anyway, put two spoons too much of sugar into it, set him upright, and shove it into his hands like he’s a child, tell him to drink it. You don’t wait to see if he does, because he’s a grown man and he needs to take care of himself and you’re not a fucking nurse and everything hurts.

While you’re in the shower, he yells that he won’t be here long. That it’s ‘only for today’.

(This is not true.)

You yell back sure, fine, whatever.

(This is not true.)

**Author's Note:**

> Most of Fitzgerald's biographers believe he had functional hypoglycemia (or low blood sugar), which is why I threw that in.
> 
> Hemingway had a messed-up eye since he was an infant (though he would eventually lie and say, in typical fashion, that he got it while boxing in Chicago).


End file.
